A Sales Compass – A Blog by B2B Sales Connections

Many sales managers often ask themselves what they should do with their non producing sales respresentatives.  Is it time to sever the employer – employee relationship and let them go?

To answer that question you first need to ask yourself if the non performing sales rep knows what needs to be done to be successful.  Does he really know how many calls it takes to make quota?  If not, have him download our Goal Setting and Action Planning Tool from the B2B Sales Connections Free Download Centre.

If the answer is yes, they know what to do, then the second question you need to ask is if they know how.  If they don’t know the proper way to make a sales call, show them.  That’s your job as sales manager!

However, if they do know how to sell, and you know that because you have witnessed their skills first hand, then ask yourself one last question.  Do they want to?  Simply put, are they willing to do what it takes to be a successful sales person at your company?  If you get to this last question and the answer is no, there is not much more you can do.

(more…)

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”  This cliché is never more important than when you are heading to a job interview. 

When you are invited to an interview you need to consider that your first impression is going to weight heavily on the person who is interviewing you. If you make a great first impression then you can bet the interviewer is going to use the meeting to try and justify why you should be working for their company. Likewise, of you make a poor first impression you should know that in the back of their mind they are looking for reasons why they shouldn’t hire you.

(more…)

Ever wonder if you could get inside a sales candidate’s head to find out what they actually think about themselves? It truly would be one of the best reference checks you could do before hiring them.

There are a few things you can do to get a glimpse of how a candidate thinks. The first is to enter the candidate’s name into a few search engines like Google. In this case, no news is good news. You can also search the online social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. If your potential sales candidate is registered, their online profiles can be very revealing.

The bottom line is, although you may not find anything online about your potential sales candidate, it can be well worth the few minutes it took you to check.

For more proven candidate pre-screening techniques including more interview questions to assess past performance, download Action Plan For Sales Management Success. As a business associate recently said, “Your content, delivery and practical examples provided the students an excellent foundation to understand the complex topic of sales recruitment and socialization”.

By popular demand, Action Plan For Sales Management Success is now available in a print version as well as these fine retailers: Amazon.com, Amazon International, Barnes & Noble, Apple iStore, Kobo, Diesel, Sony, and Smashwords.com

To download a free copy of our white paper How To Recruit The Best Sales Professionals which includes “11 Telephone Interview Questions to Find Top Performers”, visit our Sales Download Centre.

I am often asked, by both employer and employee alike, what is an average salary for a sales position.  Monster appraised all kinds of sales jobs, and recently released their report on the national averages for sales compensation.  You can review their findings on the average salaries for sales jobs here.
 
To find the average salaries in your specific geographic area for all types of positions, including sales, visit Salary.com.
 
Using tools such as these will give you an idea as to what you should be asking for in an interview in regards to salary expectations, or if you are an employer, what you should be offering to potential candidates.
 
Remember, to find the best sales jobs or to attract the best sales talent, you must be competitive in today’s job market.
 
Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Coach from B2B Sales Connections

www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns, www.facebook.com/B2BSalesConnections, or www.twitter.com/SusanEnns

As a company that hosts a niche B2B Sales Professionals job board we get a lot of resumes. Some are for specific sales jobs we have posted on our website and others are from people who are want to become part of our database for future job opportunities.

Yet many people, who send in a resume just open their email program, add our email address and attach the resume file. No name on the resume file, just “resume”. No contact information, no note saying they are responding to our ad or anything else that tells me they are a legitimate candidate.

In a world of spam, viruses and garbage attacking our “in boxes” every hour of every day you must take a minute to communicate with the person who is doing the recruiting.

No information means junk mail and no chance at a job. If you are applying for a sales job the recruiter is judging you not only on your resume but your introductory email. Face it if you can’t sell yourself in the email, the company recruiter is most likely thinking you will have the same poor approach to selling their products.

AIM HIGHER

Robert J. Weese, B2B Sales Connections

 www.b2bsalesconnections.com, http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobweese,

For more Sales Career Tips and Job Search Links, visit our blog, A Sales Compass, now considered “one of the Top B2B Blogs on the net”.

Download our free White Paper “How To Write An Effective B2B Sales Resume” from the B2B Sales Connections Download Centre.

B2B Sales Connections can make the recruiting and job search process faster and easier than ever before. For more information on what makes our job board services unique, visit Career Connections at www.b2bsalesconnections.com/career.php.

To view our current B2B sales job postings, please visit www.b2bsalesconnections.com/job_postings.php

I was recently asked, “Should you hire men or women for sales?”  It’s not the first time I have been asked this, and it’s probably not the last. 

Even speaking as a woman who was definitely in the minority in the companies I have worked for, yet was still recognized many times as a top performer in various sales capacities, I am always cautious about making generalized statements about whether women or men are better suited for sales.  (more…)

Is sales recruiting easy?  No!  In fact, a recent study published in Profit Magazine reported; “Finding the right sales talent was one of the biggest concerns facing sales organizations today.”   In a similar study conducted annually by Manpower Inc. reporting on the most difficult job to fill, sales representative topped the 2006 and 2007 list and slid to second place in 2008. (more…)

There is no question that you need to advertise your available sales positions on the internet.  After all, that is most job seekers look these days. However if you are only advertsing on social media websites, you are not reaching all the potential sales candidates you should be.

A study conducted 2009 by AfterCollege™, an employment site for Millennials also known as GEN-Y kids, reported some astounding findings. (more…)

Any potential sales representative can say they are a “quota buster” or a ”top performer” in an interview.  In reality however, descriptive phrases such as these don’t mean much to you as a sales recruiter unless there is some quantitative proof behind it.  (more…)

Even if you think you have just interviewed your perfect sales candidate and are ready to make an offer of employment, you still should make every effort, by whatever means possible, to ensure that they are who they say they are by conducting thorough reference check.

Just like your candidate interviews, you need to ask the same questions on each of your reference interviews, and those questions must be scripted a head of time.  As you will be asking the same questions to all, not only will it be very easy to compare the answers given by each reference on the same candidate, but across candidates as well.

 To download a free copy of our white paper How To Recruit The Best Sales Professionals which includes “11 Telephone Interview Questions to Find Top Performers”, visit our Sales Download Centre.

Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Connections
www.b2bsalesconnections.com, www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns, or www.twitter.com/SusanEnns

Looking for some ideas for your sales meetings? Join our free webinar where we share quick and easy ways to make your sales meetings more interesting and productive. Webinar doesn’t fit your schedule? View the presentation video here.

Do you want to make more money in sales? Do you need help with a sales situation? Do you need some sales career advice? Are you a sales manager wondering how to improve your team’s sales results? For less than an average dinner out, you could ask your B2B Sales Coach! in our Daily Conference Calls!